Natasha Thomas hit her 100th and 101st goals for the club as Ipswich Town Women got their first ever Women's National League Southern Premier Division season off to a winning start as they thrashed Hounslow 6-0 at Hanworth Villa’s Rectory Meadow this afternoon.
It took only eight minutes for the Tractor Girls to find the net at tier three level for the first time, new skipper Blue Wilson playing a ball through to Maddie Biggs, who scored.
Town had to wait until the 36th minute to make it 2-0 when new signing Bonnie Horwood grabbed a debut goal when she turned and scored at the near post following a short corner.
Four minutes after the restart the Blues were awarded a penalty and Paige Peake made no mistake from the spot to make it 3-0.
Thomas hit the Blues’ fourth goal and the 100th of her Town career in the 57th minute when she seized on Peake’s scuffed shot to slot home.
Four minutes later, those totals were taken to five and 101 when the forward headed into the net from Maria Boswell’s cross.
With 10 minutes remaining sub Lucy O’Brien sensationally ran virtually the length of the pitch and beat a number of players before netting the first goal of her senior career to complete the scoring.
Thomas, who signed a professional contract earlier in the week, was delighted to take her Town goals tally into three figures.
"It feels great, it’s one of those where you go into the game, you know you’re on 99 goals but you just have to keep playing your game,” she said.
"Now I’m on 101 it’s great. The girls always put everything in and it was great that they could help with that as well.”
Manager Joe Sheehan was pleased to get the season up and running with three points.
"Really good performance, a new experience coming here, we’ve not been here before, we’ve not played these before,” he said.
"Relatively pleased, we scored plenty of goals and we’ve started the season with three points.”
Town: Quantrill (A Jackson 77), Boswell (Egan 68), Smith (L Jackson 77), Peake, Lafayette, Robertson (Peskett 46), Wilson (c), Horwood, Barratt, Thomas (O’Brien 68), Biggs.